


what i know

by starryspindel



Series: romanov women [1]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Post-World War II, Romance, World War II, dmitry: did his love start with fear? because if it didn't toss the whole man out, if it doesn't start with that then it's not meant to be, is it a romanov romance if it doesn't start with fear???, romanov women have one type; cowardly dumbasses, that's an actual line from the musical what do you mean it isn't???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryspindel/pseuds/starryspindel
Summary: She has eyes of glaciers and the hair of an open flame and the two should always contradict one another, but it makes sense she would give birth to a daughter with the spirit of one too.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Series: romanov women [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019491
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	what i know

**Author's Note:**

> me: i'm going to write a next generation drabble!
> 
> me nearly 3,500 words later: ♪how did I get hereeeee♪

She has always known from a young age that she was descended from Kings and Queens, from Emperors and Empresses. From the very moment an adult had walked up to her, pointed to her great aunt and had asked if the two were related. She had beamed up at him, replied with a happy 'yes! She's my aunt!' in clumsy English and toddled away at her mother's call before the man could realize that the Grand Duchess Olga did not have a niece so young.

The other big hint was the bejeweled red court dress and diamond kokoshnik hidden away in boxes emblazoned with a familiar etching of an eagle with two heads in the attic. A place she had never visited, mind you, because if her parents found out she had even set foot in there she would be grounded until she was forty.

For a long time afterwards she would fashion crudely made tiaras from paper and run about, declaring herself a princess and ruler of her land, which consisted of their home in Paris and backyard. She would miss the looks shared between her parents until much later, but then it was nothing to worry about; she was a young girl of six indulging in every small child's favorite fantasy.

But of course like everything, they end.

When the family of two left Paris behind, their home becoming desolate and the small grave which held her baby brother all but forgotten, she shed away the carefree childhood she once held. She never understood her mother's desperation to leave, or the weeks beforehand when she would jump at shadows or keep a tight grip on her daughter when walking down the street, but as long as her mother still smiled like she did when they reached America she would leave every doubt and question she ever had in the past.

"Will we ever go back?" she had asked as the ship pulled out of the port in Calais, mother and daughter standing on deck, scarves wrapped tightly around their necks to protect from the winter air.

"I don't know, Malenkaya," was her honest answer. "It's not the first time I've left my home behind, unfortunately."

That caught her attention. She was barely ten years old and quick as a whip, but she never noticed the difference between her family and the others that lived around them. She had no reason to; she knew French, her mother knew French, even her father had a grasp on the language (although not as good as his wife and daughter). In every sense of the word she was French, through and through, but she never noticed how different they had actually been. Her fluency in Russian, names like 'Dmitry' and 'Anya', her constant battle with people calling her 'Nathalie' because her name was 'Natalia, thank you very much!'.

Her name was Natalia Dmitrievna Sudayeva. Not very French; but how could she have known?

"Did _you_ ever go back?"

Her mother had sighed and clutched the raggedy brown coat tighter around her. She knew she had a much better one in their suitcases, a goldenrod yellow lined with fur that she thought very ugly, not as beautiful as her smaller mauve purple counterpart currently wrapped around her shoulders. Why she insisted on wearing it was lost to her, because she had never seen it before.

"No."

She pouts, but then after a beat she lifts her head high as if she's always done so. "I will come back. Maybe not any time soon, or maybe never, but my blood-our blood-will set foot on our homeland again," she declares with the wisdom and cry of a hundred ancestors, the spark of determination roaring in her veins. She does not know if she's talking about France or Russia, but she does not need to see the smile or the look on her mother's face to clarify.

She has eyes of glaciers and the hair of an open flame and the two should always contradict one another, but it makes sense she would give birth to a daughter with the spirit of one too.

Her daughter keeps her own eyes burning of blue fire firmly planted on Europe until it becomes a dot on the horizon.

* * *

They had stayed in New York for only two weeks before moving east. This time, she knew instantly why.

The reactions of the White Russian émigrés come too much to bare, for both of them. In Paris they avoided the community of White Russians who had fled to the city after the First World War, using their fluency in French to fit in and not have questions directed at them, mainly why they lived with French residents then their own people was only across the city.

This time, while trying to work out if they would stay or carry on, they were smack dab in the middle of it all. The reverent stares made her itch and the embarrassment caused the tell tale red blotches that she had inherited from her mother to grow on her face. She didn't have to look at her when they walked down a Brooklyn street to know she had them too. It was also a way to tell when each other was lying, so they avoided it as much as possible. What was the point when red blotches betrayed you anyway?

(Without it she could con any suspecting Bolshevik, her father had said once).

The last straw is when, not wanting her daughter to get used to avoiding it, they go to a service at the nearby Orthodox Church. Back in Paris they had it at home, just to avoid the people, but Natalia had never been before and had wanted to visit at least once.

They sit in the back, trying to keep silent but she's too excited and at one point says a bit too loudly 'Mama, look they have gold on the ceiling!'. Someone in front of them turns around and before her mother could apologize a look of disbelief and awe crosses over the old woman's face. Her mother freezes, paling, and the woman's stare goes from the older woman to her.

Whatever thought passed through her mind is solidified by the one stare and she turns around, whispering to someone. It travels from person to person, and her mother turns to her. "Time to go, Tasha."

She hears the seriousness in her tone and nods. They make it quietly to the door before the voice of the Priest stops them in their tracks.

"Your Imperial Highness?" he says, "Do the whispers in my Church speak true? Are you our Princess?"

At first she thinks he's speaking to her, but the hand holding her own tightens its grip. And for the first time she could remember, her mother speaks Russian in public.

"You are all confused, I am not your Princess," she says with so much assurance that Natalia has no choice but to believe her.

"But the girl." he answers, "The girl looks just like our Grand Duchess Anastasia at that age. It cannot be a coincidence."

She does not know an Anastasia, but the words 'Grand Duchess' resonant with her and the memory of that man from years ago hits her like a gong. She looks from the Priest to her mother.

A look of pure sadness clouds her face as she replies; "I have not been your Princess or anyone else's for a long time, Father," before she pushes open the door and the two leave.

They head to Los Angeles not even a day later.

* * *

If Paris is where she flourished, Los Angeles is where she thrives.

Her mother finds a job quite easily; her fluency in many languages and her educated upbringing finds her a job at a theatre, teaching both dance and singing to many aspiring actors and actresses there. Her ability for mimicry and her almost supernatural acting skills, as she had never had any professional training, amazes both her and the people she teaches. She could sit in the seats like she does after school and watch her for ages if she could.

A student asks her one day why she doesn't try her hand at acting herself. Her mother just laughs and replies; "As much as I have always wanted too, the spirit of my mother would never approve, God rest her soul."

Natalia herself does not approve of that, or why her grandmother's opinion-the grandmother she has never even met before-is so important, but it's the first time her mother has mentioned a family member without any hint of sadness so she leaves the argument she has brewing in the back of her mind to herself.

During their third month in Los Angeles they visit a Greek Orthodox Church, as a favor to a co-worker of her mother's. Something about picking something up, but her mother is nothing but kind so they go on a Saturday to avoid interrupting a service.

They interrupt a wedding.

As her mother apologetically talks to a bishop a few feet away, her attention is drawn to two boys around her age, one blond and the other a brunet, both glancing at each other and back at her repeatedly; the blond looks a bit disgusted by her very being but she cannot detect the emotion on the brunet's. When she listens closer she can hear them speaking in English, and she just catches the words '-greedy Russians?' leave one of their mouths.

"I know what you're saying, you idiotka!" she spits in all her fury. The blond who had spoken those words rushes off immediately with just one look at the blazing blue fire in her eyes but the brown eyed boy just blinks in surprise, not even flinching as she storms over, hands on her hips, looking down at him.

Literally, as she was about a foot taller then he was.

"Are you two Greek Orthodox?" she spits out. A flash of fear appears in his eyes.

"Yes." he says in an accent she recognizes to be distinctly American.

"I'm _Russian_ Orthodox. We're practically the same, but you're over here talking badly about my people like we're not, that means you must know something I don't. So, what's the difference?"

He answers honestly; "Absolutely nothing."

And that's how she meets her best friend.

His name is Steven (or Stefanos, but everyone calls him Steven to differentiate him from his Uncle with the same name) and he is everything to her. His blond friend Constantine needed some more work. They go from enemies to good friends in the span of five years, but it's the best she can do.

* * *

"How much have you drank?" a deep voice asks to her right as the wine glass she clutches is swiftly taken from her hand and she is spun away from Lydia and Nina, who both giggle. She wants to stick her tongue out but her view of them is overtaken by her broad, tall (to her chagrin, he's only a few inches taller but she will miss the days when he was much smaller) best friend.

"This is a celebration!" she says, her eyes blazing with excitement, "We've won the war! The question should be why aren't _you_ drinking?"

He downs the rest of her wine in response and she claps in delight, laughing. He then places her empty glass on a table and pulls her arms up to wrap around his neck. His own go around her waist as he backs her into the dance space and she notices, not for the first time, just how easily she fits into his embrace. Okay, maybe she had drunk a bit too much.

"I'm the designated driver."

She points out, "I walked here with my mother," who was currently having a rapid discussion with Lydia and Nina's mother Anna in the corner.

"Doesn't make it less truer," he argues and they both fall quickly into this familiar routine.

"But you stopped me from drinking."

"You're sixteen."

"I'm under parental supervision."

He huffs at that and she knows she's won the minute he rolls his eyes. "Fair enough."

"So," she changes the subject, "Why did you interrupt the most interesting conversation between me and the twins?"

"Oh please," he snorts. "You were not even paying attention to a single word coming out of their mouths."

"Actually, I was. They were talking about seeing their father again after so long."

He flinches and looks at her. Not with pity, never with pity, she gets too much of that from everyone else. "And you?"

She looks down at their feet. "You know."

"Doesn't mean you can't hope."

"Mama does that for the both of us, and the praying. I'm moving on, someone has too."

"Has Natalia Dmitrievna Sudayev given up?" he asks in mock shock. "I never thought I would see the day."

Her head shoots up, her irises going from fractured ice to the blue fire that always burns in her eyes at any challenge. "Never."

She thinks he may have had a premonition when mother and daughter walk home later that evening to see a man sitting on their patio doorstep, head in his hands and bag on the wood next to him and looking much older then she ever remembered.

They both stop in their tracks.

He looks up, teary brown eyes looking as warm as ever. She should have known her mother would have left some sort of note for him back in Paris, just in case.

Suddenly she is thrown back seven years ago into the memory of her father kissing and clutching at her mother, wracking sobs pouring out of her throat and tears pouring down his face. She peers at them through the banister; she is supposed to be in bed, having given her goodbyes earlier that day. When he leaves her mother slides down the closed door and sobs into her hands.

Men were called to war against the Germans, ruining families just like this one as they did twenty five years before and Natalia realizes as they all run to each other, a flurry of Russian, English and French thrown back and fourth like a unsolvable puzzle, that he's been in her life far longer then he's been out of it.

* * *

She is eighteen when Steven introduces her to Emilia and nothing will ever be the same again.

Her mother has always said she's been dramatic since birth but she does not believe it until the day she is draped over the sofa, whining about how terrible her life now is. Something about it makes her father smirk, his eyes dancing with a memory, but she does not ask. She does not want to if it brings up bad memories; the screams that accompany his nightmares are more then enough, which is probably why she never asked her mother about hers. She sighs from where she is in the kitchen.

"My life is over!" she says one final time.

"Oh hush!" her mother marches in, finally fed up. "Your life is over when I say it is!"

"Natashenka, why don't you tell him?" her father chimes in to stop whatever was about to happen, his attention now fully drawn away from his newspaper.

The look she gives him could break hearts if she knew how to use it properly. "I'm-..." she breathes out, "I'm a coward."

"Just like your father." her mother says causing her to look up, ready to defend herself.

"I just have to hope the stubbornness and bravery of your mother's side kicks in," he replies, giving her a knowing wink before turning back to his paper and her mother back to her cooking. As they all expect, the flame roars in her chest once more and she is marching out of the house and down the street with the singing choir of both royal and commoner ancestors behind her, ready to prove herself wrong.

It turns out she never even had to.

"We broke up two weeks ago. If you had actually been around you would know that," his tone is bitter and she immediately feels guilty. The two are sat in his backyard, on either side of the swing in the shade of two trees.

She feels herself curling up, "I'm sorry," she begins, staring at her hands on her lap, "I just-"

"I know." he says with so much confidence it causes her to look up.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

The two of them stare at each other, waiting for the other to cave in and ask. But they both know her patience runs thinner then his. "How long?"

He smiles, "Since I first saw you at our Church eight years ago, then it became very real when you scared the crap out of me five seconds later."

She grins then, and if they catch sight of both sets parents, his four sisters AND the family's two dogs watching their first kiss from the kitchen window, they don't say a word.

* * *

She didn't think she would be spending her wedding day sat in front of her parents, hours before they had to leave for church, eyes darting back and fourth from the veil, the photo frame and the gold bracelet that has been clasped on her mother's wrist since she could remember, now separated for the first time since it was first placed on her wrist. The double headed eagle representing a long gone House that she had seen years before on a box in their attic back in Paris so long ago was now visible on the gold plating, the Cyrillic AH etched in the middle, a small crown above the letters. She knew back then she had seen it before, and she had been right.

Who knew this would all begin with her mother holding out the veil and stating; "This belonged to Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, your great-grandmother".

She had always known, of course, but it was still jarring to hear out loud.

"You knew," her mother finally fills the silence. Steven looks at her in surprise; she does not look at him.

"Yeah, I knew," she croaks, her eyes landing once more on the framed photo of a long forgotten family; grandparents, aunts and a uncle she never got to meet although she knew they would have loved her just as fiercely as they loved one another. Her mother's face, _her_ face, stares back at her. "I mean, it was obvious right?"

"Why didn't you say anything?" she asks.

"Did it matter?" she looks up then, eyes searching for the Grand Duchess she had heard rumors about, but could only see her mother. She finds her answer then; it didn't. All that mattered was that they live, for the ones who couldn't.

"I do have questions, one day, but right now." she takes Steven's hand and smiles. He returns it. "I'm focused on the future."

Her parents, not for the first time, glance at one another then back at them. A weight that she has always seen on her mother's shoulders lift then, and she knows she caused it by just being who she was. She did not take it personally, one day she might carry the same weight, looking over her shoulder and hoping no one can see on her face what she carries in her blood. Blood that has never been blue.

Adorned in that same veil, the bracelet with the double headed eagle and AH etched into the gold wrapped tightly around her wrist, the two leave the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Central Los Angeles two hours later, hands clasped tightly and both wearing matching smiles on their faces as family and friends cheered around them.

"So," she asks that night, grinning at her husband and the blue fire that burned in her eyes ablaze, "what do you think about France?"

If a full year later they name their first born after the church they were married in, well, that was no one's business but their own.

**Author's Note:**

> natalia, draped over the sofa:
> 
> dmitry in his mind: it's me, anastasia


End file.
